The Assassin's Key - Paperback

by Stephen B. Smart (Author)

At fourteen, Gillis McCabe has a contentious argument with his father and angrily leaves his home, vanishing into the city. Years later, through hard work and innovative decisions he rises to become one of the wealthiest businessmen in Virginia. Feeling an urge to mend the relationship with his father, he decides to make the journey back to his childhood home. What he discovers shocks him, his father's estate is in shambles and the entire staff has been massacred. The mystery deepens when he finds Letty, the slave that raised him, and she gives him a strange medallion just as she dies. Gillis surveys the estate and realizes the only thing missing is his father, Scully McCabe. Tensions between the North and South are at a boiling point. The residents of the nation's capital are on edge as the city's murder rate soars. Searching for his father, Gillis quickly finds himself drawn into a downward spiral of death, torture and kidnapping at the hands of a mysterious group of brutal assassins. Gillis McCabe, will face the greatest challenge of his young life as he tries to locate his father and stop a plot that could change the course of history.

Author Biography

Life has a strange way of leading us down unexpected paths. My career in writing started very different from most. On a beautiful summer day I took the opportunity to ride one of my larger mules out into the hills above my ranch. Who would have thought that short ride would change my life forever. Suddenly the mule stopped, violently shook and then collapsed backwards. The force of the impact knocked me out and the mule and I began tumbling down the hill. Later I would wake to find my boot and broken leg lying on my lap. My chest was battered by the saddle horn and I was unable to move. Through the grace of God, a fisherman would hear my pitiful cry and search the woods until he found me. I have never been known for my patience and as soon as I was off the morphine I began thinking what I could do with all this new free time. Lying in bed has never been one of my favorite things and as soon as I could I had my notepad out and began working on ideas for a book. Later my first book, Whispers of the Greybull, would be a Western Writers of America Spur Award Finalist for best new author. My second book, Vanishing Raven, would go on to win a Will Rogers Silver Medallion Award. Today, I continue to enjoy writing, while as a Landscape Architect, I run a design and construction firm called Environment West and a nursery, Smart Gardens, in Spokane Washington. Cartooning has been a lifelong pastime, as well as my passion of hunting and packing with my mules in the different wildernesses of the west.